


Stay.

by JadeLupine



Category: Hannibal (TV), King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Reincarnation, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 18:04:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeLupine/pseuds/JadeLupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Hannibal Lecter felt a dead, soft weight on his shoulder, like a bird. He would turn around, and see if someone was touching him, but there was nothing there. Will Graham felt so many things that did not belong to him, that he hardly noticed it when would feel an imaginary man’s face in front of his, small braids tickling his hair. </p><p>Sometimes, they remembered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, yes, Hannibal/Will and Galahad/Tristan, it's been done a lot of times before but come on, give mine a chance? YAY THANKS HAPPY READING <3

Sometimes Hannibal Lecter felt a dead, soft weight on his shoulder.

He would turn around, and see if someone was touching him, but there was nothing there/ Sometimes he felt the fluttering of wings in his ear, and he would close all the windows, but still, but still he could hear it. He felt strange words trickle out of his mouth at times, a short, sharp phrase, to  _come,_  or to  _fetch this_ or  _scout ahead_ , and he would put his finger up to his shoulder. Sometimes he felt soft swishes of hair on his face, although his own was slicked sharply back. He kept this secret, he sealed it inside his wet cave of a mouth because telling someone this would mean he was less than perfect.

Sometimes Will Graham felt like he had a horse between his legs. When he was sitting down, on a plush leather chair in his classroom, he would feel like there ought to have been a rough, squirming animal under him. Sometimes he would feel his hair sweeping away, as though there was a strong wind, even though he was in the cafeteria, and all the windows were shut. He felt a rough beard tickling when he brushed his face, although he only had weedy stubble. He felt. He felt so many things that did not belong to him, that he hardly noticed it when he felt another man’s face infront of his, small braids tickling his hair.

That man was not Hannibal. He knew that, and he felt guilt stab at his stomach with a thorny spear, making revulsion creep up his throat for seeing a man in his dreams who wasn’t Hannibal.

“Will, you must cut that unruly mop of yours.” Hannibal was sitting next to Will, a hand in his lap, and the other running ruefully through the agent’s hair. “It is most untidy.”

“I’ll cut my hair if you stop wearing hairgel.” Will raised his eyebrows, and winked uncharacteristically at Hannibal. “It’s so greasy.”

Hannibal felt a smile twitch to his lips at the insult to his hair, and touched Will’s face softly, running his lips softly along his jawbone, making the younger man think of velvet and soft sheets. “What…” Hannibal purred quietly. “Do you suggest I do to my hair, then?”

Will pulled his face away, excitement gleaming in his eyes, and he rubbed his hands together. Hannibal sensed that there was some mischief to follow, and he opened his mouth to stop it, before he caught sight of the look of _involvement_ in Will’s eyes.The man looked happy, as he hadn’t looked ever since the Chesapeake Ripper case had begun. He shut away his words, and let Will muss up his hair with his hands, causing the gel-stiff strands to stick up anyhow, making Hannibal look as though he just had a nasty tumble.

“That’s better.” Will grinned, his hands still on Hannibal’s head. “You look less like you’ve got a stick up your arse.”

“Do you want one?” Hannibal growled, his teeth glinting.

“It’s so soft though,” Will observed, as he pulled Hannibal into him, and ran his fingers through the brown strands. “Your hair.”

“I use shampoo that cost more than your house.” Hannibal observed, as Will coaxed him further back. “What are you trying to do, Will, bending me backward?”

“Oh God, just put your head on my lap, Hannibal, I’ll fix your hair.” Will rolled his eyes, as Hannibal put his feet up on the sofa and rested his head on Will’s thighs, glaring at him from below.

“You better put it back to as it looked before, or people will think I am a lunatic.” He lay back as Will smoothed the hair down, and threaded his fingers through it, pulling it, and soothing his scalp with his fingers. Hannibal closed his eyes, and felt sleep tantalizingly waving it’s dark fingers at him, pulling him in. Will was having a wonderful time with Hannibal’s silky hair, and he lowered his head to breathe in the warm scent.

_“Your hair is so unruly, Tristan.” Galahad ran his fingers through Tristan’s wavy hair, as the man lay on his lap, smiling up at his lover. “Why don’t you tie it up?” They were in the North English countryside in autumn, the knights taking a two day break in the midst of the dry grass and icy water._

_“You’re one to talk, my love.” Tristan grinned up as he spoke in his native Eastern European, rumbling voice, his pointed teeth glistening. “I don’t tie my hair up, it will make me look like a…what was the word?”_

_“A coward?”_

_“Yes. That word. I need to have my hair loose and fierce.” Tristan felt his own hair, flying up in front of his face , irritating his eyes, and he rubbed it back. “Although it does get rather in the way at times, does it not?”_

_“It’s so tangled.” Galahad frowned, as his fingers caught on yet another knot in the man’s hair, and he smoothed it out. “Cut it off, Tristan, it even interferes with kissing!”_

_“Nothing interferes with kissing, Galahad.” Tristan raised his body up, and pressed a kiss to Galahad’s lips, before lowering himself back down and Galahad resumed the combing of his hair. “Ouch!” Tristan exclaimed, frowning, as Galahad pulled out a hank of hair accidentally, as they were too knotted up._

_“Shh, let me do something.” Galahad beseeched, as he picked up a few reeds of dry grass off the ground, and began twisting Tristan’s front hair against each other, ignoring his repeated questions as to what he was doing, and wove the reeds in at the end to make a knot , before repeating it thrice more._

_“There, all done.” He said, grinning._

_“What have you done?” Tristan felt his face, and found that none of his hair got in his face any longer._

_“I braided your hair for you.”_

_“Like a woman?” Tristan exclaimed, outraged. “You tied my hair in the style of a woman?”_

_“No, come here and look.” Galahad pulled his lover up by his calloused hand, and Tristan groaned at being pulled up so hastily, as the men stumbled their way to an icy, still pool. In which Galahad pointed Tristan to his reflection._

_“See? This is not womanly.”_

_“I suppose it is not, isn’t it?” Tristan ran his hand across his face and hair, taking in the way the braids made his cheekbones catch the light more. “But of course, with a manly visage such as mine, there is nothing too womanly.”_

_“Oh, I can tell you what is womanly about you, Tristan.” Galahad scratched his face._

_“What is?”_

_“This!” And Galahad pushed his lover into the pool in which he was admiring his reflection, and noting the shriek which the man emitted, which was undoubtedly womanly, or at least more womanly than the tall, gruff Eastern European knight cared to admit._

Will removed his hands from Hannibal’s head as if struck by an electric shock, and stared down at the man who was lying on his lap, eyes closed in slumber.

“Tristan.” He whispered softly, as he envisioned a beard sprouting up on Hannibal’s chin, and he stroked his hair, imagining slick braids of wavy, untameable strands. This was Tristan, his Tristan, but he did not know who Tristan was. He touched his lover’s skin again, smooth like polished mahogany, but If his fingers lingered, he could feel battle scars that did not exist on this pale visage.

“Tristan and Galahad.” He tested the words, letting them trod lightly on his tongue, and closed his eyes as the words felt overly comfortable, as if he was saying simply Hannibal and Will.

“Tristan. And Galahad.”

X

Sometimes when they made love in the sweet drippings of night, they would feel rough blades of wet grass under their knees and back, but when they looked, all they saw was starched sheets and velvet pillowcases. Sometimes they felt as if they heard whisperings of other men, far away but not too far away, but there was nobody in the cavernous house. Hannibal, as he thrusted on top of Will, he sometimes felt the rough back of a cloak meant to cover them on his shoulders, but when he opened his eyes, it was only the chilly air nipping at his skin.

“Do you believe in reincarnation, Hannibal?” Will’s eyes were closed and he was naked under the soft touch of laundered sheets. “Do you believe we can come back one day?”

“The Buddhists believe strongly in reincarnation, as do the Hindus. It plays a pivotal part in their worship.” Hannibal considered, his arm resting softly on Will’s stomach, his body turned to face him. “They believe you might return as a flower, or an ant, or a cow, and if you are worthy, a human.”

“But do you believe in it? That maybe we’ll walk around on earth, and you will be somewhere, and I will be somewhere and we will never remember any of this?” Will pressed on, relishing the feel of Hannibal’s dark, muscled arm on him.

“Sometimes.” Hannibal closed his eyes and tried not to think of reincarnation, although the words envoked a series of thoughts in him that weren’t entirely his. They lingered at the back of his throat, tickling uncomfortably, tasting of wood-smoked fish and roasted ferret held over a blackened fire. Tasting like the rough burn of a curly beard on your face, and once again, Hannibal felt the soft weight on his shoulder, and the swish of braids on his cheeks. He tried to make it go away, but instead, he opened his mouth.

“Do you know the tale of King Arthur, Will?” Hannibal asked quietly, and he did not know why the words escaped him, as King Arthur was merely a fable he had heard from his father, long ago, and at the orphanage.

“No, I don’t.” Will frowned, for he really did not know. “He was a hero in England, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he had his knights, who sat at a round table.” Hannibal remembered words he had read in a book.

“Why?”

“So that they would all be equal, no leader, no one  a lower rank.” Hannibal said, and again, he wondered if they were actually words in a book, or words someone had said, long ago. Will traced the word  _equal_  with his tongue, and tried to erase the picture of a Roman in his head, clad in red, smiling at them.

“How many knights?” Will asked, cherishing the sound of Hannibal’s voice as it told him things.

“I don’t know.” Hannibal smiled, before he began to speak again, names of people he did not know, had never heard of. “There was Bors, I remember. Lancelot, who loved the maid Guinevere. There was Dagonet…”

“Who died on ice.” Will found himself saying, and thought he must have read it in a book, at college long ago.

“There was Arthur, who led the knights. There was Tristan, the archer scout. And there was Galahad.”

“Tristan and Galahad.” Will frowned, remembering where he had heard the names, a cold trickle running into his heart.

“Yes.” Hannibal recalled, and closed his eyes.

_“Do you believe we will come back one day?” Galahad asked Tristan, who looked up at the sky, the stars not reflecting in his blackest of black eyes._

_“We might come back, although Arthur will not like to hear us speak of this. We might come back as a tree, or a horse, may be. Or if I am worthy, I could return as a man.”_

_“What would you like to return as?” Galahad asked, a small smile playing on his face._

_“I would want to come back as a bird. I had always wanted to fly, and be free forever. Maybe a horse, but the highest honour for me would be a bird, a falcon.”_

_“What if I return, and you return,” His lover inquired of Tristan, “But we don’t know each other, and maybe we will see each other sometimes, but we will never speak, we will never know this?”_

_“Don’t be so macabre.” A smile flickered on Tristan’s bow-like lips, before dissolving again. “We may never come back.”_

_“True, but I’d like to.” Galahad grinned, and looked up at a tree, on which Tristan’s bird lurked, eyeing them beadily._

_“What would you like to come back as, then?” Tristan turned to his lover, his teeth glinting in another rare smile._

_“Yours, Tristan. I’d like to come back as yours.”_

X

“Jack, the five of us have spent three hours inside this dirty, musty house and nobody, least of all the goddamn Chesapeake Ripper has come, so can we please go and not breathe grease and dirt?” Will asked testily, tapping his foot. He looked once around the grimy, dark room, and he could make out the figures of the four people who were with him, lurking in an abandoned house for the Chesapeake Ripper. He didn’t come of course, since he was happily involved with the case, standing on Beverly’s right side, and looking at whatever she was reading over her shoulder.

“He might turn up, Will.” Jack coughed as dirt intruded upon his sinuses. “If he does, and we’re somewhere else, what will happen then?”

“We’d be alive and happier.” Brian Zeller muttered from the corner, where he sat with his arms on his knees . “Jack, I’m quite sure I’ve inhaled about five flies and twelve mosquitos, and what’s more worrying is that I’ve counted.”

“I don’t see Beverly complaining, or Doctor Lecter either.” Jack fingered his gun, as Beverly rolled her eyes nastily.

“I didn’t complain because I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would catch a fly. Yes, Jack, I would like to leave. There’s no way the Ripper is going to come back here, he isn’t that stupid.”

“Hannibal?” Will asked, hoping that Hannibal wouldn’t choose now to act holier-than-thou and support Jack.

“As Ms Katz said, I doubt your Ripper will return to this place. Also, I seem to be breathing in too many things that are not meant to be inhaled, and a few minutes of fresh air would be most opportune.”

“Fine.” Jack grunted, leading the way out, clutching his gun in case the Ripper popped out from behind a banister. The group made their dusty way out onto the porch, where Zeller hacked into the grass, trying to expel the multitude of insects he had swallowed.

“Hannibal, you’ve got dirt on your face.” Will pointed out drily, jabbing his finger on his lover’s cheeks, where there were smears of black dust from the house.

“No, I do not.” Hannibal hissed, and tried to rub his face discreetly.

“There’s a service toilet over there, you can wash it off, you know.” Beverly raised her eyebrows as she tried to wipe smears off her coat. “It isn’t the end of the world, Doctor Lecter.”

Hannibal trudged indignantly through the mud to the small bathroom, and observed himself in the grimy mirror, which had yellowish dirt lodged in the cracks. Will had not been understating things, there were two triangular smears of coal dust on his cheeks, and as he glared at his reflection, the face in the mirror, with the smears on his cheeks, seemed to blur and distort.

_“Galahad, you have to help me, you have to do this thing!” Tristan rushed into Galahad’s makeshift leather tent, and held out a hollowed porcupine quill as well as a plate of ink made from the roots of trees, the richest black._

_“What?” Galahad frowned, wondering at the strange assortment  of items in his lover’s hands, which he promptly set out of Galahad’s reed mat, before sitting cross legged on the mat himself._

_“Tattoo me. Make the ink sink into my skin, two triangles, thin, on my cheeks. Like this.” Tristan dipped his fingers in the ink, and drew two horizontal stripes on his cheeks, and looked up at Galahad, who dipped the porcupine quill into the plate of ink._

_“Why do you want stripes on your cheek?” Galahad inquired, as he swilled the ink around to mix it thoroughly._

_“To look fierce to the enemy, and to let them know a fierce warrior is on his way to end them.” Tristan boated, as his lover snorted._

_“All right then, are you sure you do not want me to give you a few more stripes so you can look as if you were a striped wildcat?” Galahad joked, before he pressed the quill into the sensitive, taut skin of Tristan’s cheekbones._

_“ARGH!!!”_

Hannibal stared at the mirror, the face looking at him, for a flash of an instant, not his own, and instead, that of a man with braids and a steely glint in his eyes, tattoos on his cheeks similar to the smears of dust on Hannibal’s own cheeks. And behind him was a bearded visage, with curly hair, both on his face and cheeks, who grinned at him for a split second, before melting into the face of Will, who raised his eyebrows.

“Haven’t you washed that stuff off, Tristan?”

Tristan.

“Wait for me, just a minute, Will.” Hannibal tried not to hear the other name he had been called, and instead, splashed icy water on his face to clear his vision.

“Yeah, we’re just leaving.” Will called, not acknowledging the slip of his tongue that was not a slip, more like a skid  down a steep slope.

Tristan, Hannibal thought, as he closed his eyes, as he followed Will.

Tristan.

X

_“What if I die in the battle, Tristan? Just like Dagonet?”_

_“You cannot die, Galahad. You cannot die, because you are mine.”_

_“But if I do, you take this. You take this if I die, all right? Here.”_

_“This is your family crest, this medallion. It has been yours for decades.”_

_“Now it’s yours. Look at it if and when I die, and remember.”_

_“I cannot forget. But what can I give you to remember me?”_

_“You don’t have to. I’ll think of you all the same.”_

_“I have no family heirloom. I have nothing of value. But…yes. Here, wait…”_

_“What are you doing with that knife, Tristan? Why’re you cutting your hair?”_

_“You keep this braid. It’s all I’ve got, I don’t have anything else.”_

_“You’ve got me.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“And I’ll stay for as long as I can, Tristan.”_

“You cannot leave me.” Hannibal was clad in dark blue prison pants, and a shirt with a number stamped in black, as he sat on his hard, regulation cot, and stared straight at Will, who stood with his hands clamped around the bars in a churlish way, tears brimming in his eyes, yet not creeping down his stubbled cheeks.

“Why not?” he whispered to the prisoner he knew could hear him, no matter how soft of a whisper he spoke in. “Why can’t I leave you? I can leave you right now.”

“You cannot leave me because.” Hannibal frowned, and fingered the bed he was sitting on, felt the rough threads that were already coming loose. “Because you have waited for  over fifteen hundred years to see me again, and now you will leave me?”

“What are you talking about?” Will frowned, although suspicions tugged at his brain like marionette strings. “I’m sane now. You’ll never get into my head again.”

“Tristan and Galahad.”

“Those are simply stories, Hannibal. How could you see them as us?” Will closed his eyes, although he  _knew_. He knew too much to see.

“Stay, you said you would stay.” Hannibal’s words sounded odd coming in his deep, accented voice, but nevertheless they had to be said. “We waited for so long, and you are leaving.

“Don’t mess me up again, Tr—-Hannibal. Please.” Will begged, before looking at marron eyes for the final time, and turned to leave, his loafers clacking on the linoleum floor. Will reached the front of the corridor, and leaned his head on the cool tiles of the wall, tring to soothe his head.

_Stay, you said you would stay._

A flash of a body lying prone on the grass, bleeding from a wound, and braids undone, hair on his face flashed in Will’s head, prompting a lump to rise in his throat. He tried not to remember the broken body with the wild hair, or the feeling of tears drying on his face in the hot English sun, and most of all, he tried not to remember the feel of a shorn braid in his pocket, to be fingered every hour, simply for good luck from a dead lover.

“You left first, Tristan. It was you who left first.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Woooo I'm done x   
> How is it? It's basically the same plot as everything but I wanted to try it!  
> What do you think?   
> Pleease please please leave me a comment, ILY forever <3


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